Ode to My Job

. 'Arbeit macht frei' is a German phrase meaning 'Work shall set you free' found above the entrances to a number of Nazi concentration camps during World War II. More than 70 years later, almost everyone is an inmate of the global concentration camp of modern human culture.

Work doesn't make us free, it enslaves us. A person at work is a person with no identity. Ze is not a person, just a uniform, a suit. A person at work has no mind of zer own, no brains, no head. As the painting suggests, the body of a person at work ends at the neck.

The corporatisation of human life and culture proceeds at an accelerating rate. One of the results is the destruction of our humanity itself. Another is the destruction of the planet.

A person at work is a psychopath with no personal values, just a fake but hearty enthusiasm for the values of the corporation. Every morning, when we walk into the workplace, we leave our personal values at the door. We're all psychopaths, these days, or sociopaths if you're into labels. We repress and suppress our personhood, our empathy, at the behest of the employer. That's why there are cruel red eyes in the lapels of a pin-striped suit. They are the insane eyes of one who has lost zer personhood.

And yet, as Jesus is said to have said, "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin. And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these."

And here we are, 2000 years later, toiling and spinning for dear life, and not liking it very much at all.

Painting by SRS, oils on board, 54.5 x 74.5 cm.

No agenda was tabled
No meeting was chaired
All came who were abled
No-one was spared.

No minutes were red
The suits were all blue
All heard what was said
About what they should do.

No actions were listed
As open or closed
No task-owners queried
No deadlines imposed.

The guest speaker rose
He got to his feet
Assumed a cool pose
Said “Hi there, I’m Pete!”

That’s what he said
When he got up to speak
No hat on his head
At the meeting that week.

So why was he there
At the Monday team meeting?
Dark suit and great hair
Fake warmth in his greeting?

And what did he say
That well-groomed consultant
On that awful day
What was the resultant?

"Your boss couldn’t be here
He was feeling quite tired
But He asked me to tell you
You’re gone, you’re all fired!

"Not moved or suspended
And not redeployed.
We recommended
Now you’re unemployed."

For those who ...

... CONTINUES in ... AWAREWOLF & Other Crhymes Against Humanity for kindle, tablet, smartphone or e-reader.

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eBooks by Cosmic Rapture
(for kindle, tablet, smartphone or e-reader.)

NIGHTMERRIES: THE LIGHTER SIDE OF DARKNESS. This so-called "book" will chew you up, spit you out, and leave you twitching and frothing on the carpet. More than 60 dark and feculent fictions (read ‘em and weep) copiously and grotesquely illustrated.

AWAREWOLF & OTHER CRHYMES AGAINST HUMANITY (Vot could be Verse?). We all hate poetry, right? But we might make an exception for this sick and twisted stuff. This devil's banquet of adults-only offal features more than 50 satanic sonnets, vitriolic verses and odious odes.

MANIC MEMES & OTHER MINDSPACE INVADERS. A disturbing repository of quirky quotes, sayings, proverbs, maxims, ponderances, adages and aphorisms. This menagerie holds no fewer than 184 memes from eight meme-species perfectly adapted to their respective environments.

MASTRESS & OTHER TWISTED TAILS. An unholy corpus of oddities, strangelings, bizarritudes and peculiaritisms, including but not limited to barbaric episodes of herring-flinging and kipper-kissing. A cacklingly bizarre read that may induce fatal hysteria. Not Recommended!

FIENDS & FREAKS and serpents, dragons, devils, lobsters, anguished spirits, hungry ghosts, hell-beings, zombies, organ-grinders, anti-gods, gods and other horse-thieves you wouldn't want to meet in a dark cosmos. Immature Content! Adults Maybe.

HAGS TO HAGGIS. An obnoxious folio featuring a puke of whiskey-soaked war-nags, witches, maniacs, manticores and escapegoats. Not to mention (please don't!) debottlenecking and desilofication, illustrated. Take your brain for a walk on the wild side. Leave your guts behind.

The Law of the Conservation of Crap

Photo of Planet Earth by Flicker user DonkeyHotey under CC Attribution License. "My Daily Poo": Photo of toilet bowl by Billy Danner on his page at dailyscat dot blogspot dot com dot au. Animation by masterymistery.

Most critters including humans get their get-up-and-go from the stuff they eat and drink. And they get stuff to eat and drink by using their get-up-and-go to hunt or fish or harvest crops or stroll to the nearest McDonalds.

Scientists say you can’t create or destroy get-up-and-go. You can only change it into a different form of get-up-and-go, or into stuff.

Likewise, they say you can’t create or destroy stuff, you can only change it into other stuff or into get-up-and-go. For example, you can’t destroy a Big Mac, you can only change it into stuff.

By now you’re thinking this post is just a load of reprocessed burger. You’re probably snarling into your thickshake, “who says you can't make new stuff or get rid of existing stuff?”

“Says the Law!”

“What frickin’ law?”

The Legend of the Dog-faced Woman

Animation based on detail from Triptych of Earthly Vanity and Divine Salvation, painted by Hans Memling c. 1485

Every year there is a date
on which all parents hold a feast
they eat and drink and celebrate
a certain hairy, monstrous beast
who growls as bad kids meet their fate
so listen up as I relate...
the Legend of the Dog-faced Woman.

Once two kids of Satan's spawn
an evil boy, the girl a bitch
came upon a magic thorn
with which they pricked a sad old witch
and that was when the curse was sworn
and thus it was that then was born...
the Legend of the Dog-faced Woman.

When children disrespect their mums
or fail to listen to their dads
when kids forget to wipe their bums
or won't switch channels in the ads
or scream or sulk or suck their thumbs
tell them a tale, and here it comes...
The Legend of the Dog-faced Woman.

View from a shit-stained boulder

Lost, thirst-maddened, flyblown and with feet burnt black, the Seeker wondered the endless desert. Tongue grotesquely swollen, he climbed the highest mountain. Eyes horribly bulging, he swam the deepest sea.

For untold aeons he searched and looked hither and thither, high and low... driven by the primeval, urgent, elemental urge to Seek. Seek what? Doesn’t matter. Shaddup.

Lost, the Seeker sought.

Out of time, outside of time, high upon a craggy crag the Seeker encountered an elderly guru of dubious provenance, indeterminate gender and reproachable demeanour. Gnarled and nut-brown ze wast, perched cross-legged upon a shit-stained boulder, the smell of an oily rag emanating from zer ambiguous loins.

Jubilation rose within the Seeker’s throbberous heart. Humbly on chafed knees approached he the Nut-brown. Then eyes downcast spake he demurely, saying:

Shall I Sing to Thee of Hatred?

DOJO OF ABS, oil on stretched canvas 39.75 cm x 50.25 cm. A horrible work, don't like it at all.

Shall I sing to thee of hatred
whilst the rancid wine-red moon
lies plump upon a sullen sky, beloved?
Or doth thy internecine inclinations
bereft of paradigmatic meaninglessness
assert thy drolly wrothful commands?

As you feed the gentle drops of blood
caress your cheeks like crimson tears, my love
calling forth sweet morphogenetic memories
of all the times we’ve slain together
the line of carcasses stretching to eternity
death-lily delineating forevermore.

Shall I woo thee with insurance
until the gibbous enormity patronises
the very longitude of marsupial afterbirth, dollface?
Or would’st thou engrave betwixt delinquent carnage
thrice-flailing widdershins encircling
sublunary solemnity’s crepuscular astrolabe?

Forsooth! And whence thy infinitesimals
thy gaping quiescence incarnadine
fistula-festooned but buttery, sweet cheeks?
Or durst thee verily impignorate
thy carious kynodontic blandishments
whence fulsome gadzookery ...

... Continues in AWAREWOLF & OTHER CRHYMES AGAINST HUMANITY for kindle, tablet, smartphone or e-reader. We all hate poetry, right? (Vot could be Verse?). But we might make an exception for this sick and twisted stuff. This devil's banquet of adults-only offal features more than 50 satanic sonnets, vitriolic verses and odious odes.

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They don't bleed when you cut them

Economic power is concentrated in the hands of a few giant multi-national corporations. Apologies for no attribution but I can't remember where I found this diagram.

It's a strange world, and getting stranger by the minute. If you're not part of the solution you're part of the problem.

I don't know what the solution is, but we all know what the problems are. And if people of goodwill and strong will put their heads and hearts and hands together, we can help steer the doomed Titanic of human culture out of the path of the iceberg of human greed and selfishness.

IMHO many of the problems are the direct result of the actions of large corporations, especially 'multi-nationals’.

I think the following two actions would help address many of the problems we face (and have caused). To implement either or both will be very difficult, but game-changing if done successfully.

1. Remove the protection corporations enjoy as 'legal persons'. A legal person can “…sue and be sued, enter contracts, incur debt, and own property” (Wikipedia 22 July 2016).
2. Remove the protection of limited liability for shareholders, partners and directors. Under limited liability, “a person's financial liability is limited to a fixed sum, most commonly the value of a person's investment in a company or partnership” (Wikipedia 22 July 2016).

It's not a god-given right of a corporation to be treated as a legal person. No, in fact the opposite. It's a get-out-of-jail-free card that flesh-and-blood people gave to corporations roughly three hundred years ago. Legal personhood enables corporations to enjoy the benefits of being a flesh-and-blood person, with few of the responsibilities or accountabilities.

Global warming's habit-forming

Detail from Hungry Ghosts Scroll, late 12th century, Kyoto National Museum, Japan. You don't have to be Buddhist (or even human) to feel that life is pain and misery. But some lives are more painful and miserable than others. One of six lifeforms available to humans for reincarnation purposes, hungry ghosts (aka anguished spirits) can never satisfy their monstrous appetites.

If humans were to go away
Would nice terrestrials stay and play?

Were we to leave for outer space
Who'd stand and say we're in disgrace?

Fish don't know its paradoxic
Waste is food and food is toxic

No birds there be, or bees, or trees
Who realize we spread disease

We'd like to say with deep remorse
We're very sorry, yes of course

But where's the mailbox on the moon
To send the Earth a Get-Well-Soon?

To tenderize a tough old bird
Just cook her longer, so I’ve heard

But like revenge, or so I’m told
The Earth is better eaten cold.

Published in AWAREWOLF & OTHER CRHYMES AGAINST HUMANITY for kindle, tablet, smartphone or e-reader. We all hate poetry, right? But we might make an exception for this twisted stuff, a devil's banquet of adults-only offal featuring more than 50 satanic sonnets, vitriolic verses and odious odes.

HOME

Cheeky little devil

The Devil Torturing Souls as well as Being Tortured Himself in Hell”, painted by the Limbourg Brothers, from Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry, 1411-6

Little Jonnie stood at the entrance to Hell, bright-eyed and bold as brass. In his left hand blazed a flashlight. In one pocket was a box of matches, in the other were spare batteries for the flashlight.

Lacking maturity and being well-schooled in folly he audaciously demanded an audience with the First of the Fallen.

“Can’t you read?” growled the Gatekeeper Demon in Charge, pointing to the sign.

“Firstly,” responded Little Jonnie, impudence oozing from every pore, “How can I abandon something I never had to begin with? Secondly, how can Hope be abandoned when she already has been left behind in her unbreakable house? And thirdly, I haven’t entered yet, have I? You’re blocking the way.”

The Gatekeeper Demon shook his long, twisted horns with irritation. He didn’t know what to say. He had never before encountered anyone or anything like this impertinent Young Person, so self-possessed and not at all afraid.

“What is the meaning of this, young man?” spluttered the Gatekeeper Demon. None too bright at the best of times, the Demon's perplexity rendered him temporarily incapable of performing his agnostic duty.

“The meaning of which young man?” asked Little Jonnie provocatively.

“You! You, young man! I believe I’m talking to you!!” The Gatekeeper Demon’s coal-black face turned as red as a boiled lobster.

“Believe? Don’t you know for sure?” asked Little Jonnie wickedly.

Can't do nothing properly!

One day dad went into McDonald’s for a burger but it was quite busy and he had to wait in line. Also, the teenage staff weren’t very efficient: one was flirting with a boy, another was talking on her phone, and another was just plain slow and useless full stop.

Dad got more and more impatient. He had a terrible hangover and all he wanted was a nice greasy burger to throw to the pain in his gut.

Finally, he got to the head of the queue and grumpily placed his order but was told it wasn’t ready and could he wait a couple minutes. That got him steaming mad.

The Evil Sandwich

Once upon a brunch I bought a Sandwich from a gnarled and rustic seller ensconced quite gaily in a gaudy booth one inauspicious day.

‘Twas ham and cheese: I remember it well, as if ‘twere but this very toothsome morn itself that I reluctantly but expectantly forked over six clinking dollarim — sponduleks if you will — to that aged and curly purveyor within zir gaudy booth that foul and fractious day.

And though the absence of tomato hinted at the manifestation of dark forces as repulsive as a botched cosmological constant, still I remained initially at least unaware if not absent-minded as to the true and fundamental nature of the Sandwich.

The laziest man in history

Once upon a time there was a lazy man, the laziest man in history. His name was Henry Peter Gaines.

He was so lazy that he couldn’t even do the things he enjoyed doing like eating and watching television, because it was just too much effort. He was so lazy that he found it an ordeal to do nothing but mooch around the house all day in his dirty underpants munching pistachio nuts and quaffing fizzy drinks.

As well as being lazy (some would say because of being lazy) he was also very bored — so bored that on weekends and holidays he could think of nothing better to do than to sleep.

Every Friday night, for instance, Henry would go to bed around nine, nine thirty. He would wake up around eight on Saturday morning, doze in bed for an hour or two, then get up and shuffle to the toilet. After that, he would either go back to bed, or make himself a cup of tea then try and decide how to spend the day.

The taste of anger

Anger is an acquired taste, like the taste for blue cheese or witchetty grubs. When you first drink at the Well of Anger, you’re not sure you like it. In fact, you don't like it at all. But you soon learn. And the deeper you drink, the quicker you learn.

Many times have I been drunk on Anger. Many times have I chased that oh-so-delectable feeling of being out of control, of being authorised -- even empowered -- to transgress boundaries I wouldn't even dream of transgressing under calmer, gentler circumstances.

Rage is an even headier brew -- the bitter toxicity of it burns your throat as you gulp it down. Rage makes you feel... fine and hot!

tell me who do i gotta kill today

Available at iTunes (99c), CD Baby (99c) and YouTube. Composed, performed and mixed by me some six or seven years ago. Sales to date: zero. ("And I wonder why... Why, why, why..."!)

Once I went walking but I lost my way
Then right up ahead was a little cafe
I walked right in, said "what's the special today?"
The waiter was a man of many years
He said "all you'll get is blood, sweat and tears."
I laughed as I shot that man in the face
Then I turned and I ran right out of that place.